Fests and events, 9/21.

"Seeing Mala Noche for the first time in 2007 is a revelation," writes David Schmader in the Stranger. "More than any of his subsequent films, [Gus] Van Sant's debut weaves together the themes that will preoccupy him for the duration of his career so far: youth and danger, the desperate adventures of the American demimonde, and the intricacies of male-on-male lust and love." At the Northwest Film Forum through September 27 and out on DVD from Criterion on October 9.

As Strange Culture comes to the Roxie (through Sunday) and the Smith Rafael (through Thursday), Michael Fox exchanges some rapid-fire email with Lynn Hershman Leeson for SF360. "Fiction in art can have a more profound element of truth than documented evidence," she tells him.

Not Coming to a Theater Near You opens its NYFF section. September 28 through October 14.

"The Chicago Film Festival, despite a paucity of big premieres and a shortage of national coverage, is a pretty top-flight shindig and it's right in my neighborhood." Nick Davis has his itinerary "all kinds of together." October 4 through 17.

Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian on Syndromes and a Century: "Profoundly mysterious, erotic, funny, gentle, playful, utterly distinctive, it is the work of the Thai director and installation-artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who now has a claim to be approaching the league of Kiarostami and Haneke, one of modern cinema's great practitioners. He deserves his current retrospective at London's BFI Southbank." Through September 30.

The Oregonian's Shawn Levy passes along Esmerelda Bermudez's interview with Maria Osterroth Sussman, who's organized the very first Portland Latin American Film Festival, running through Sunday.

Posted by dwhudson at September 21, 2007 12:19 PM